Waterloo explores idea of another car park uptown

Aim to free up land for development

WATERLOO — Temporary parking lots that cropped up in uptown Waterloo in recent years won’t be around forever.

That’s why the city wants to look at other ways to create more parking uptown.

The city will seek proposals to look into having a car park or garage north of Erb Street after council approved the move on Monday night.

“This is a great strategy move in the city to partner with other developers in the area,” Coun. Melissa Durrell said.

Waterloo will look into the idea of building a car park at an existing, city-owned temporary surface lot or privately-owned land.

Part of the strategy is to slowly get rid of surface lots in the uptown to free up land for redevelopment, according to a staff report.

Right now the city has more than 2,000 parking spots that are not located on city streets.

These spots can be found in the parkade on King Street and in surface lots around uptown.

Two free temporary parking lots were put in place a few years ago to help ease the burden of light rail transit construction uptown and continue to attract visitors.

Now that construction work is coming closer to an end, the city wants to plan for more permanent parking solutions in the future.

One option is to erect a parking facility at the site of a city-owned temporary lot at the corner of Bridgeport Road and Regina Street.

It’s one of two temporary lots at that intersection.

The other one is behind the former Canada Post office and is not city-owned.

An arrangement with Canada Post has allowed the city to use the lot as free parking, but that will not last for much longer.

The city will put out a request for proposals to building a structured parking facility that will house 100 to 200 new permanent parking spots uptown.

Durrell, who is ward councillor for the uptown, pointed out that there is a need for parking north of Erb Street.

It is a need that has also been highlighted in a number of city-led studies, including a parking utilization study from last June.

Only 20 per cent of uptown parking spots are on the north side of Erb Street.

Much of the new development in uptown Waterloo is also in this area, a staff report notes.

Details of the project have not been hashed out yet, but the new lot will most likely follow a similar structure to the parkade on King Street.

It will most likely have hourly paid parking as well as permit parking.